


Celerity

by AlphaOmegaTartarus



Category: Warframe
Genre: One-Shot, better yet a GAUSS oneshot!, this may turn into a collection of Gauss oneshots idk yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaOmegaTartarus/pseuds/AlphaOmegaTartarus
Summary: definition; swiftness of movement.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Celerity

Five minutes.

That was how much time they said he had.

Five minutes to get to the Grineer fortress, and destroy their long-range receiver before they received their new message from command stating to kill the hostages. Said Grineer fortress was heavily guarded, and a total of thirty-seven kilometers away. 

As Gauss lowered himself to the ground, he kept himself upright with his fingers as his legs stretched out behind him. 

Five minutes to run past a veritable army of clones, dangerous Earthen wildlife, trees, and whatever other obstacles might be in his way for a total of thirty seven kilometers. 

His ship’s Cephalon has informed him that he would need to break the sound barrier within the first few seconds of the run to be able to get there in time. “Mach two is the ideal speed to be able to get there in time.”

Mach two, they said.

His engines began to rev up, whirring up from a low purr to a rumble not unlike a predator’s growl.

Easy.

One moment, the Warframe was there, low to the ground.

The next, he was gone, and the forest clearing was disturbed as leaves and rustling grass all but flew in the direction Gauss had left in. 

The Warframe dashed through the trees, ducking underneath branches, leaping above boulders as he resumed his Mach Rush. Soon enough, he had dashed out of the forest, and into the Plains of Eidolon. 

For but a second, nay—an _instant_ , he could feel the golden grass rustling before his mad dash, tussling against him as the wind displaced their pollen, the beautiful vista rushing past him.

Then he hit Mach one. 

He was off like a shot from a gun, the sonic boom flattening the area around him as the leaves from the forest were sent tussling back to their home by the backblast of the now-broken sound barrier. 

Now, those golden seeds were caught up in his slipstream, drifting along behind him as he all but tore through the chaff and the wheat to reach his destination. Gauss felt the hard-packed dirt, nearly as hard as stone, crack under his stride as he pushed off the ground with incredible force. 

“Operator, two Dargyns are on your tail,” his Cephalon commented, sounding rather worried. Gauss just kept running, even as he could see the ground around him getting torn up by the high-powered rounds of the Grineer air skiffs that were now following him. 

As fast as he was running, it seemed like they could still catch up—

Gauss felt something impact his back, _hard_. His Mach Rush interrupted, he unceremoniously tripped, bouncing off the hard ground as his momentum, along with him, halted to a stop. 

Seems like one of the Dargyns got a good shot. 

Slowly, slowly, the Warframe began to stand back up. Vaguely, he could see eruptions in the earth around him, with grotesques armoured figures emerging from them. 

Ghouls. 

His right hand twitched, about to reach for the pistol on his side, when the Cephalon commented over the communications link:

“Sixty seconds until the message is received!”

No. He was out of time. 

_Unless—_

He began to run again. Not a Mach Rush—this was just a normal sprint. As he bounced through the spinning augurs and the charging ghouls, dodging and spinning and sliding, several ‘vents’ along the Warframe’s body began to open, not unlike a spacecraft about to take off. There was a low thrum of energy in the air around him that began to build up, eventually becoming a high-pitched whine. It would take time to activate. 

“Thirty seconds! Seventeen kilometers to go!”

Time he did not have. 

He ducked underneath a ghoul’s toxic breath, before sprinting at the general direction of the Grineer fortress that was his goal. As he crested a ridge, he could see several Grineer battalions heading his way, and more arriving via dropship. Heavy Gunners, Ballistas, Lancers, they all began to take aim. He used the momentum of climbing up the hill to bullet-jump into the air, spinning into a mid-air crouch—

“Fifteen seconds!”

And then:

_“Redline: Broken.”_

Gauss all but vanished. 

Several bullets whizzed through the air of where he _was,_ before the confused clones looked around as to where the Tenno scum could have possibly gone. 

Then, there was a scream that echoed across the Plains of Eidolon that day, as legends would state that a whole army of Grineer began to be carried away on the wind left by the fastest thing alive: a spirit of the air itself, that came to exact vengeance on the polluting clones.

Gauss, meanwhile, has resumed his Mach Rush, going almost too fast for an unaugmented eye to see. He had left behind any would-be pursuer in his dust, and was achieving a speed that was normally reserved only for certain aircraft and interplanetary travel. 

Mach five. Supersonic. 

All that he could see seemed to almost _stretch_ before him, like the world was melting away before him. 

“Ten seconds!” His Cephalon, helpfully, chimed in.

Gauss could feel his engines push their function, could feel the Redline almost shattering as he pushed himself past any semblance of limit. His figurative pistons were about to misfire any moment. 

“Five seconds!”

And there it was, in the distance. The Grineer fortress, looking down on him from the top of a mountain like a king looking down on their peasants.

Their gates were closed. Gauss could see that plain as day. And with five seconds left, he had no time to try and find a way to open them.

“Four!”

Then, an idea occurred. It came like a ray of light from above, faster than he could ever hope to achieve.

F=MA. Force equals mass times acceleration. 

“Three!”

The Wardrame didn’t have mass. That was fine.

He just needed to make up for it with more acceleration.

Gauss kept pushing himself, pushing past his limits even further. The redline has all but shattered by now, his figurative pistons firing so fast that they were but blurs now. His internal engine began to spark and sputter as he got every drop of power he could out of it. Every step he took now was shattering the earth beneath him, leaving small craters as if meteors had impacted.

“Two!”

Mach six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

Twelve. He was halfway up the mountain.

Thirteen. Three quarters.

Fourteen. He was now at the gates.

Fifteen—

“One!” 

* * *

Ostron scouts that day reported the strangest sight. 

That damnable fortress that kept their countrymen hostage, those impenetrable ferrite-clad walls, those unbreakable defenses, they…

Broke.

There was a rumbling that echoed across the Plains as the front gate of the fortress, a solid four feet of ferrite, had been busted down by some mysterious force. The fortress’ interior communications tower’s supports all but evaporated under that same force, and had collapsed, causing the northern wall to shatter under its weight. 

This gave the Ostron a way to get into the fortress and rescue their kin, before they vanished under the cover of night. 

That night, as the clan feasted and drank in celebration, a new song was made and sang. One of a wind spirit, being so angered by the Grineer’s pollution that it tore through their defenses and men like they were leaves before a storm. 

What became of the spirit, no one knows. Some say it sacrificed itself to destroy. Others say it took to the stars, ascended for its service to the earth beneath it. Even others say it is still present, watching to this day in case the Grineer attempt to move on Cetus and those under its protection again.

The Wind’s Wrathful Dash, the song would come to be called. 


End file.
